Podcasts religion Israel in Translation Vilna My Vilna: Chana-Merka, the Fishwife

Vilna My Vilna: Chana-Merka, the Fishwife

Published: April 13, 2016, 6:42 a.m.

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This week, we feature a new collection of stories by Abraham Karpinowitz,\\xa0Vilna My Vilna.\\xa0Host Marcela Sulak reads\\xa0an excerpt from \\u201cChana-Merka, the Fishwife,\\u201d which follows the beginnings of the\\xa0Max Weinreich Yiddish Institute, today called YIVO and housed in New York. Then in Vilna, Chana-Merka would meet with\\xa0Dr. Weinreich to hand over lists of "Yiddish pearls" - Yiddish phrases and expressions to be recorded for posterity. Here are some of the Vilna curses Chana-Merka submits to Weinreich:

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"May you get a piece of straw in your eye and a splinter in your ear and not know which one to pull out first.

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How long do you think she\\u2019ll be sick? If she\\u2019s going to lie in bed with a fever for another month, let the month last five weeks.

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May a fish ball get stuck in your throat.

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They should call a doctor for you in an emergency and when he arrives, they should tell him he\\u2019s no longer needed."

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Karpinowitz was born in 1913 in Vilna, Lithuania, a city long considered the cultural and intellectual center of Jewish Europe.\\xa0He arrived at the new state of Israel from a Cypriot displaced persons camp in 1949, and for the next three decades he was the manager of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra. He died in 2004.

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Text:
Vilna My Vilna by Abraham Karpinowitz. Translated by\\xa0Helen Mintz.\\xa0Syracuse University Press, 2015.

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Music:
Anonymous - Mein Shtetl Belz, 1928
Nigel Kennedy and the Kroke Band - Kazimierz
Nigel Kennedy and the Kroke Band - Jovano Jovanake

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